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Petrified Forest National Park (Images of America)
by William Gibson ParkerPetrified Forest National Park in Northeast Arizona was set aside in 1906 by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt to protect the scientifically important Mesozoic forests. With a boundary encompassing 225,000 acres, the park protects not only the largest and most colorful deposits of petrified wood in the world but also significant archeological and ecological resources and other important fossils, like the oldest dinosaurs in North America. The park has been a crossroads for travelers and a destination for scientists, including Albert Einstein and John Muir. As a work site of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the only national park crossed by the famous Route 66, and a centerpiece of the National Park Service's Mission 66 initiative, Petrified Forest National Park has a history that rivals that of more familiar national parks.
Tourism, Landscape, and the Irish Character
by William H. A. WilliamsBritish tourists in Ireland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were both charmed and repulsed. Picturesque but poor, abject yet sublime in its Gothic melancholy, the Ireland they experienced did not fit their British sense of progress, propriety, and Protestantism. Tourism, Landscape, and the Irish Characterdraws from more than one hundred accounts by English, Scottish, Welsh, and Anglo-Irish tourists written between 1750 and 1850 to probe the moral judgments British observers made about the Irish countryside and its native inhabitants. Whether consciously or not, these travel writers defined their own British identity in opposition to a perceived Irish strangeness: the rituals of Catholicism, the seemingly histrionic lamentations of the funeral wake, cemeteries with displays of human bones, the archaic Irish language or the Celtic-infused English that they heard spoken. Overlooking the acute despair in England's own industrial cities, they opined that the poverty, bog lands, and ill-thatched houses of rural Ireland indicated failures of the Irish character. By the eve of the Famine of the 1840s, travel writers were employing stereotypes of Celtic, Catholic carelessness in the south of Ireland and Saxon neatness and enterprise in predominantly Protestant Ulster, even calling for "Saxon" colonization of the west of Ireland. The Famine cleared the land of many of the peasants, but the western landscape, magnificent in its scenery but poor in its soil, eventually defeated most of the British "colonists," leaving the region to an ever-increasing number of tourists who could enjoy the picturesque mountainscapes without the distracting contradiction of an impoverished populace. "Superb book. Students of tourism and national identity, as well as of British and Irish history, will all find a great deal of interest in this text. "-Eric Zuelow,H-Travel "Certainly among the most comprehensive and engaging explorations of this literature yet to appear, not only for what it says about British travelers in Ireland but also for what it indirectly reveals about life I pre-famine Ireland itself. "-Mark Doyle,Journal of British Studies
Union Beach (Images of America)
by William H. BurketThe Borough of Union Beach was established in May 1925 and began as a community of summer homes for many northern New Jersey residents. Property in the Borough was inexpensive and close to the beach, and the area eventually became filled with year-roundresidents. In this enchanting collection of images,discover the history of Union Beach and the people who have called it home. Featured in this collection are scenes of 1930s entertainment enjoyed by residents and visitors of Union Beach. From the plays performed by local groups and the dances held almost weekly, to the recital of Daniels' Dancing Studio and the night club programs at Pop Julian's Boat House tavern, the early days of this coastal community come alive in Union Beach. The images in this volume are from the Union Beach Memorial Library collection and many other residents. Union Beach captures the unique and colorful history of this New Jersey community through carefully preserved historic photographs and a thoroughly researched text. It will serve as a valuable tool inteaching the history of the town to future generations.
Chicago's Historic Prairie Avenue (Images of America)
by William H. TyrePrairie Avenue evolved into Chicago's most exclusive residential street during the last three decades of the 19th century. The city's wealthiest citizens--Marshall Field, Philip Armour, and George Pullman--were soon joined by dozens of Chicago's business, social, and civic leaders, establishing a neighborhood that the Chicago Herald proclaimed "a cluster of millionaires not to be matched for numbers anywhere else in the country." Substantial homes were designed by the leading architects of the day, including William Le Baron Jenney, Burnham and Root, Solon S. Beman, and Richard Morris Hunt. By the early 1900s, however, the neighborhood began a noticeable transformation as many homes were converted to rooming houses and offices, while others were razed for construction of large plants for the printing and publishing industry. The rescue of the landmark Glessner house in 1966 brought renewed attention to the area, and in 1979, the Prairie Avenue Historic District was designated. The late 1990s saw the rebirth of the area as a highly desirable residential neighborhood known as the South Loop.
High Bridge (Postcard History)
by William Honachefsky Jr.The history of High Bridge is intertwined with the development of the iron and steel industry in the United States. As early as the 1700s, the framework of this little hamlet had already been created by English investors who carved up the rich wilderness of the New World, brimming with iron ore that would be essential to the county's development. High Bridge Borough evolved around the Taylor Wharton Foundry, established in 1742. With the passage of time, however, High Bridge has lost its farming and foundry roots, evolving into what is often referred to as a bedroom community. Just like the lofty trestle from which High Bridge derived its name, the city now runs the risk of being lost to time, forsaking the resilient character of the immigrants who forged a nation. This book aims to preserve High Bridge's glorious history for future generations.
Journeys To The Heartland
by William HorwoodAn age of heroes is dawning...The time has come for the wolves of Europe to take back their ancient Heartland. For centuries is has been corrupted and poisoned by the Mennen and by the evil Magyar wolf-pack. Only by reclaiming it can the true gods be reborn and the natural order restored.
The Spawning Run
by William HumphreyWilliam Humphrey's delightful chronicle of an angling holiday in Wales celebrates two equally astonishing creatures: the Atlantic salmon and the British fly fisherman In order to mate in the same freshwater stream where it was spawned, the salmon swims one thousand miles or more and overcomes countless obstacles, from trawling nets to twelve-foot-high waterfalls. To catch the King of Fish at the end of its incredible journey, the Anglo-Saxon angler subjects his pride, his bank account, and his taste buds--poached milk, anyone?--to similar dangers. Nine out of ten salmon do not make it back to the sea once their spawning run is finished; nine out of ten sportsmen return to the hotel empty handed when the fishing day is done. And yet, year after year, they return to the rivers and streams of Great Britain--fish and angler both. Why? Perhaps "poor Holloway," who has yet to land a salmon after twenty spawning seasons but whose success rate with the bored wives of more skillful fisherman is scandalously impressive, knows the answer. An elegant blend of fishing narrative, travelogue, and character study, The Spawning Run is a hilarious and heartfelt tribute to the irresistible passions that unite us all: man, woman, and salmon. This ebook features an illustrated biography of William Humphrey including rare photos form the author's estate.
The Birds of New Jersey: Status and Distribution
by William J. BoyleNew Jersey provides some of the most varied and exciting birding in North America, and more than 450 species have been recorded in the state. Yet there has been no comprehensive and readily available guide to the status and distribution of all these species--until now. The Birds of New Jersey is the most up-to-date and succinct guide for the birds of New Jersey and includes all species known to the state from historical times to the present. Featuring over 200 color photos of rarities and regular species, this book authoritatively provides individual entries that include a summary of status and seasonal distribution, and comments on changes over time. Detailed color-coded maps accompany species accounts, and for species recorded five or fewer times, dates and locations of each record are noted. The introduction examines the state's geography, the history of bird records, and background information to species accounts, and the extensive bibliography guides birders to original sources used in the book. This is the essential resource for birders, ornithologists, and nature enthusiasts interested in the birds of New Jersey and the greater surrounding region. Most up-to-date status and distribution guide for New Jersey and surrounding region All bird species known to the state Species accounts describe the preferred habitat and abundance of species Range maps in color detail seasonal distribution For migratory birds, spring and fall migration times indicated More than 200 color photographs of rare and common species
Fort Devens (Images of America)
by William J. CraigThe geographical location of Fort Devens has a military history that dates back to the 1600s, when the area was first garrisoned by British troops. In 1915, the region was again chosen for a cantonment, one of only sixteen in the country. In order to build the camp, the War Department assembled the largest labor force in history. New buildings sprang up at the rate of about ten per day and supported more than one hundred thousand troops that were processed at Camp Devens, as it was originally named, during World War I.Fort Devens is the first book to trace the military activity in this area. Throughout the twentieth century, troops were trained and deployed from Fort Devens for every major conflict the United States was involved in. During World War II, Fort Devens inducted more than six hundred thousand men into the army from the New England area. The list of individuals who have served here included Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Bill Mauldin, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Even NASA can trace its birth to Fort Devens by way of Dr. Robert Goddard's liquid-fueled rocket experiments.
Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America
by William J. MurtaghThe historic preservation movement has had a huge influence on America's built landscape for the past thirty years. Discover the cornerstone primer on the topic -- Keeping Time. This edition features a wealth of new material, including new chapters on preservation values in oral-based cultures, international preservation, and future developments in the field. In addition, you'll find a clear, concise survey of preservation movements history, complete with: Helpful coverage of the theory and practice driving the movement; Expanded material on landscape preservation; and, New information on scientific conservation, cultural corridors, and historic tourism.
Ellis Island: New Hope in a New Land
by William Jay JacobsAn inspiring chronicle of the immigrant experience recounts the history of Ellis Island from 1892 to 1954, the period during which more than seventeen million immigrants passed through its doors in search of new lives in America.
A River without Banks
by William JohnsonA River without Banks chronicles one family's journey to Idaho, with all of its uncertainties, promises, and hopes. The book explores their encounters with a place still partly wild, whose communities and landscapes teach them how to respect the earth and each other. William Johnson's essays move from a family vacation spent observing moose, to a comparison of the creation myths from Genesis and the Nez Perce, to watching a raptor seeking prey. Johnson meditates on how places, animals, and people teach us "how to see, and how we do, and don't, belong." In prose that reveals a poet's eye, Johnson examines how family relationships affect how we see the natural world. He explores the power of words to divide and to heal. He illuminates the challenges of sustaining a vital relationship with a home place. A River without Banks will appeal to readers interested in the literature of place, ecology, natural history, indigenous culture, and conservation.
The Caribbean Coral Reef: A Record of an Ecosystem Under Threat
by William K. SaccoThis book is a visual tour of Caribbean coral reefs between 1968 and 1978. They are the world’s second largest coral reef community and the most threatened. The Caribbean Coral Reef: A Record of an Ecosystem Under Threat offers a priceless historical record made by a photographer who set out to document the major reef species when those reefs were at their prime. Today, coral reefs are under threat as never before and, sadly, most of what is shown in the book's photographs is now gone forever. It is only by comparing the images in this book with what we see now that we are able to fully recognize what we have lost. With its stunning photography and precise, accurate scientific information, this book offers students of coral reefs a wealth of information about this rich, fragile ecosystem. It is also written accessibly for non-academic visitors to the Caribbean reef or anyone interested in the earth’s creatures. Many of the invertebrates will be unfamiliar to most people, and the author reveals fascinating insights into these otherworldly creatures and their lifestyles. Enjoy this field guide to the reefs that were, and savor the beauty of this vanishing environment and its organisms.
Southwestern Homelands
by William KittredgeFor part of each of the last twenty years, much-loved essayist and fiction writer William Kittredge has ventured to the storied desert landscape of the Southwest and immersed himself in the region's wide-ranging wonders and idiosyncrasies. Here Kittredge brings all this experience to bear as he takes us on a rewarding tour of the territory that runs from Santa Fe to Yuma, and from the Grand Canyon on south through Phoenix and Tucson to Nogales. It is a region where urban sprawl abuts desert expanse, where Native American pueblos compete for space with agribusiness cotton plantations, and where semi-defunct mining towns slowly give way to new-age hippie gardening and crafts enclaves. As part-time resident and full-time observer, William Kittredge acquaints us with one of the country's most vital and perpetually evolving regions. Populated with die-hard desert rats on the banks of the Colorado, theoretical physicists in Albuquerque, Hopi mothers and their daughters, and renegade punk-rock kids sleeping in the streets, Southwestern Homelandsis a book as much about the legacies of a territory's colorful past as it is about the alternately exciting and daunting complexities of its immediate future.
Southwestern Homelands
by William KittredgeFor part of each of the last twenty years, much-loved essayist and fiction writer William Kittredge has ventured to the storied desert landscape of the American Southwest and immersed himself in the region's wide-ranging wonders and idiosyncrasies. Here Kittredge brings all this experience to bear as he takes us on a rewarding tour of the territory that runs from Santa Fe to Yuma, and from the Grand Canyon on south through Phoenix and Tucson to Nogales. It is a region where urban sprawl abuts desert expanse, where Native American pueblos compete for space with agribusiness cotton plantations, and where semi-defunct mining towns slowly give way to new-age hippie gardening and crafts enclaves. Populated with die-hard desert rats on the banks of the Colorado, theoretical physicists in Albuquerque, Hopi mothers and their daughters, and renegade punk-rock kids sleeping in the streets, Southwestern Homelands is a book as much about the legacies of a territory's colorful past as it is about the alternately exciting and daunting complexities of its immediate future.
Marseille, Port to Port
by William KornblumMarseille, France’s sunny second city, is a beguiling place. A major Mediterranean port, it beckons to urban wanderers and anyone enthralled by cities in all their multiplicity. Marseille’s ancient streets tell stories of fires, plagues, wars, decay, and regrowth. Waves of people of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds have made their way there, and many have found homes for themselves. Although the city hosts visitors from around the world, France’s social and political fault lines are on full display. For all its charm, Marseille struggles to overcome its reputation for corruption and crime.William Kornblum—an eminent urban sociologist and a veteran traveler in the Francophone world—invites readers on an exploration of a changing city. Blending travelogue and social observation, he roams Marseille’s neighborhoods and regions in the company of writers, scholars, activists, and ordinary people. The living history of the city comes through in Kornblum’s character sketches and the stories that his guides tell. Relishing Marseille’s coasts and crags and reveling in its rich maritime culture, they discuss the political, social, and environmental challenges the city faces. Kornblum also draws connections with his hometown, New York City, which like Marseille is a deindustrialized port city increasingly dependent on the production and consumption of culture.Offering a captivating and thoughtful portrait of the city and its citizens, this book is for all readers who have ever wondered what makes Marseille so distinctive.
Verde Valley
by William L. CowanThis book celebrates the colorful history of the Verde Valley from its prehistoric settlements to the Arizona State Centennial Celebration in 2012. Located in the heart of Arizona, between the Sonoran Desert and the mountain highlands of the Colorado Plateau, the Verde Valley has been a pleasant refuge for man and beast for thousands of years. In a land known for its lack of water, the Verde River and its tributaries--Clear Creek, Beaver Creek, Oak Creek, and Sycamore Creek--have attracted prehistoric people and American pioneers alike. This book will illustrate the history of the "Verde" from the ruins of the lost civilization to the first Anglo farming efforts along Clear Creek and the military presence at Camp Verde. It will illustrate the settlements at Middle Verde and along Beaver Creek, Rimrock, Oak Creek, Cornville, and Sedona. Finally, it will visit the settlement near the Cottonwoods, the exploitation of the Billion Dollar Copper Camp at Jerome, the smoke-belching furnaces of the smelters, and the elegant architecture of the planned company town of Clarkdale.
The Last Voyage of the Karluk
by William Laird MckinlayAn astonishing narrative of disaster and perseverance, The Last Voyage of the Karluk will thrill readers of adventure classics like Into Thin Air and The Climb. In 1913, explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson hired William McKinlay to join the crew of the Karluk, the leading ship of his new Arctic expedition. Stefansson's mission was to chart the waters north of Alaska; yet the Karluk's crew was untrained, the ship was ill-suited to the icy conditions, and almost at once the Karluk was crushed-at which point Stefansson abandoned his crew to continue his journey on another ship. This is the only firsthand account of what followed: a nightmare struggle in which half the crew perished, one was mysteriously shot, and the rest were near death by the time of their rescue twelve months later.Written some sixty years after the fact, and drawing extensively on his own daily log, McKinlay's narrative of this doomed expedition is rendered with remarkable clarity of recollection, and with a combination of horror and a level of self-possession that, to modern eyes, may seem incredible. Like most of his companions, McKinlay was inexperienced, without a day's training in the skills essential to survival in the Arctic. Yet he and many of his fellow crewmen, with the help of an Eskimo family accustomed to such conditions, survived a year under the harshest of conditions, enduring 80-mile-per-hour gales and temperatures well below zero with only the barest of provisions and almost no hope of contact with civilization.Nearly a century later, this remains one of the most compelling survival stories ever written-an extraordinary testament to man's overpowering will to live.
Sahara Unveiled
by William LangewiescheThe world's most vast and forbidding desert is revealed in all its cruelty and wonder in this masterpiece of contemporary travel writing by the author of "Cutting for Sign". Determined to see the Sahara as its inhabitants do, Langewiesche crossed this enormous desert from Algiers to Dakar, braving its natural and human dangers and depending on its sparse sustenance and suspect charity. Photos. Map.
Blue Highways: A Journey Into America
by William Least Heat-MoonWilliam Least Heat-Moon's journey into America began with little more than the need to put home behind him. At a turning point in his life, he packed up a van he called Ghost Dancing and escaped out of himself and into the country. The people and the places he discovered on his roundabout 13,000-mile trip down the back roads ("blue highways") and through small, forgotten towns are unexpected, sometimes mysterious, and full of the spark and wonder of ordinary life. Robert Penn Warren said, "He has a genius for finding people who have not even found themselves. " The power of Heat-Moon's writing and his delight in the overlooked and the unexamined capture a sense of our national destiny, the true American experience.
Blue Highways: A Journey into America
by William Least Heat-MoonHailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map-if they get on at all-only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi." His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.
Here, There, Elsewhere: Stories from the Road
by William Least Heat-MoonHERE, THERE, ELSEWHERE draws together for the first time William Least Heat-Moon's greatest short-form travel writing. Taking us from Japan, England, Italy, and Mexico to Long Island, Oregon, Arizona, and more, HERE, THERE, ELSEWHERE is a sharply observed, funny, and touching series of uncommon adventures narrated by America's keenest writer of place, people, and sublime connection.For decades, William Least Heat-Moon's readers have been clamoring for him to gather his shorter pieces; now, that wait is over. A perfect treasury of prose and wry provocation for readers old and new, HERE, THERE, ELSEWHERE is further confirmation of Least Heat-Moon's status as an American master.
PrairyErth: A Deep Map
by William Least Heat-Moon(from flaps) PrairyErth is a vigorous and exalted evocation of the American land, its people, its past, its hopes. The very word "prairyerth," an old geologic term for the soils of our central grasslands, captures the essence of the American tall- grass country. Only a writer of William Least Heat-Moon's gifts could find in a single Kansas county the narrative of an epic, the nonfiction equivalent of the great American novel. Robert Penn Warren pronounced Heat-Moon's Blue Highways "a masterpiece ... a magnificent and unique tour." That best-selling book described a 13,000-mile, 38-state automobile journey into America. Now Heat-Moon has pulled to the side of the road and set off on foot. Instead of traveling endless miles, he takes us on an exploration of time and space, landscape and history, in one fragment of the Great Plains. Most American readers know three things about Kansas: it is flat, it has something to do with The Wizard of Oz, and the events of In Cold Blood took place there. Three illusions: the first is a lie, the second a fairy tale, the third a nightmare. Chase County is, however, a sparsely populated tract in the Flint Hills of central Kansas, "the last remaining grand expanse of tallgrass prairie in America," and PrairyErth lovingly details its 744 square miles and 3,000 souls till it looms as large as the universe while remaining as intimate as a village. PrairyErth is rich with Chase County's voices past and present, and is filled with anecdotes, gossip from its bars and cafes, Native American lore, and rueful tales of man's inhumanity to man and nature and of nature's indifference to humanity. Heat-Moon recounts the story of a farm couple swept aloft "by a tornado; reveals an Indian recipe to avert lightning; unearths a century-old unsolved murder; interviews a retired postmistress, a cowboy, a quarryman, a coyote hunter, a young feminist rancher. PrairyErth sets the story of a nineteenth- century tycoon, who dreamed of building a rail line to China through the county, against the memories of a retired Mexican railroad worker who can still recall every tie he spiked for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe. It speaks of the passion of the slavery wars of Bleeding Kansas and the sad fate of the Kaw tribe, and gives us a hundred new ways to see stones, creeks, grasses, birds, beasts, and weather. Each of the book's vivid and evocative chapters is totally unexpected, yet "unexpected Kansas must be sought in its remoteness, a place you find only with effort." The millions who have read Blue Highway,), and those who have yet to encounter the genius of William Least Heat-Moon's writing, will find that he is one of those rare modern writers who can change forever the way we see ourselves and our country.
PrairyErth: A Deep Map
by William Least Heat-MoonThis New York Times bestseller by the author of Blue Highways is &“a majestic survey of land and time and people in a single county of the Kansas plains&” (Hungry Mind Review). William Least Heat-Moon travels by car and on foot into the core of our continent, focusing on the landscape and history of Chase County—a sparsely populated tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills of central Kansas—exploring its land, plants, animals, and people until this small place feels as large as the universe. Called a &“modern-day Walden&” by the Chicago Sun-Times, PrairyErth is a journey through a place, through time, and into the human mind from the acclaimed author of Here, There, Elsewhere: Stories from the Road. &“A sense of the American grain that will give [PrairyErth] a permanent place in the literature of our country.&” —Paul Theroux, The New York Times
River-Horse: A Voyage Across America (Core Ser.)
by William Least Heat-MoonNew York Times bestseller: &“A coast-to-coast journey by way of great rivers, conducted by a contemporary master of travel writing&” (Kirkus Reviews). In this memoir brimming with history, humor, and wisdom, the author of Blue Highways and PrairyErth &“voyages across the country, from Atlantic to Pacific, almost entirely by its rivers, lakes and canals in a small outboard-powered boat&” (San Francisco Chronicle). Setting off from New York Harbor aboard the boat he named Nikawa (&“river horse&” in Osage), in hopes of entering the Pacific near Astoria, Oregon, William Least Heat-Moon and his companion, Pilotis, struggle to cover some five thousand watery miles—more than any other cross-country river traveler has ever managed—often following in the wakes of our most famous explorers, from Henry Hudson to Lewis and Clark. En route, the voyagers confront massive floods, submerged rocks, dangerous weather, and their own doubts about whether they can complete the trip. But the hard days yield incomparable pleasures: strangers generous with help and eccentric tales, landscapes unchanged since Sacagawea saw them, riverscapes flowing with a lively past, and the growing belief that efforts to protect our lands and waters are beginning to pay off. &“Fizzes with intelligence and high spirits.&” —Outside &“Propels the reader with historical vignettes, ecological and geological detail, and often hilarious encounters with local eccentrics.&” —Time